Alpha Force: Flash Trace
by Elledreamer
Summary: DISCONTINUED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE The five members of Alpha Force are in London taking part in one of the biggest sporting events of the year. But a nasty discovery sets them off on a chase after one of the deadliest criminals they’ve ever faced.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything you may recognise. This applies to the entire fic.**

* * *

Chapter 1

The man stared down at the city of London. A haze of cloudy mist hung over the roads and buildings as the city awoke. The sun peeked over the skyscrapers in the distance reflecting off the many windows staring back at the man. A couple of hundred meters away the grey glitter of the Thames stood out amongst the black roads. Below him, the man could see the people of the city awakening. Multi-coloured blobs moved lazily about and the tiny specks of those hurrying to work were just visible. The city of London was awakening. The man smiled. A few more days of peace. A few more awakenings. Then it would be time…

The pole wobbled as Paulo hauled himself onto it. The platform was just narrow enough for him to reach and clutch the other side of it. Once he had, he lifted his leg up so his knee was on the platform and pushed downwards with his other foot. He managed to bring his other leg onto the platform, and stopped, letting the pole come to a stop before moving forwards and slowly standing up. It was hard when you were that high up, Paulo thought staring down at the green, brown earth all that way below him. Usually Paulo was ok with heights, but this was a bit different. Once he was stood up, Paulo outstretched his arms and then tentatively peered down to where his friends were stood. He could see the red blob of Amber's helmet down below.

"Ok Amber. You can come up now"

The five members of Alpha Force were on an outdoors pursuits course in the north of England. The holiday had been arranged by Alex, and so far the five teenagers had already experienced archery, canoeing, abseiling, horse riding and a zip line to name a few. Now they were tackling the high ropes.

The task the instructors had set them hadn't sounded too hard initially: Four of them had to climb up a pole and get on the platform at the top. They then had to hold hands, leaning off the platform and drop. Paulo was finding that it was a lot harder in practice. Out of the five of them Li had volunteered to sit the activity out. Knowing scaling the pole would be easier for her then her friends, she had instead opted to go up on her own afterwards, preferring to watch the other four struggle.

Paulo felt the pole start to wobble dramatically as Amber began to climb up it. He spread out his feet to balance the weight and grabbed the short rope that was attached to the platform. From the ground he could hear Hex and Alex shouting encouragement to Amber as she neared the platform. Paulo grinned; this was going to be interesting…

As Amber reached the top of the pole she craned her neck back. She could see Paulo's boots on the platform, and his hand clutching the rope. It hadn't been nice scaling the pole; it kept feeling as if her grip wouldn't be enough to keep her on. She knew that she was safely harnessed up, and trusted the instructor belaying her rope completely, but it still freaked her out having to trust completely to her grip on the wooden blocks attached to the pole.

"Come on Amber" Paulo said from above her "Take my hand".

Amber reached up and grasped Paulo's hand. It felt a little better to feel Paulo's hand strongly gripping hers. Slowly, with Paulo's help, Amber managed to hoist herself onto all fours on the platform. She was about to attempt standing up when she heard Paulo's voice from above her head.

"Amber, whatever you do. Do not raise your head". Amber frowned.

"What?" she asked, still staring at the wood of the platform "Why?" she tilted her head sideways without lifting it and stared upwards.

"Oh" she said bluntly "Sorry". Slowly she moved her head out from between Paulo's legs and lifted it. Paulo grabbed her arm and Amber slowly managed to lift herself up.

"Woah" she said staring around her "This is high" she caught Paulo grinning and smiled back. As Paulo called down for Hex to join them Amber looked downwards. There was barely any room left on the platform for Hex to stand on, let alone Alex.

"Paulo?" she asked tentatively "How's this going to work?"

Hex pulled himself onto the small space left on the platform. Managing to look up he couldn't help but smile. Paulo was still stood holding onto the rope, and Amber was gripping Paulo's arm, her heels off the side of the platform.

"Nice of you to join us" she said, a slight edge of nervousness in her voice. Hex just laughed quietly as he took Paulo's offered arm and started to stand up. Amber held her arm up too and after grabbing that, Hex managed to pull himself to his feet.

Slowly, he backed himself into the same position Amber was on Paulo's other side. Amber, obviously eyeing the very limited space left rolled her eyes.

"Wonderful" she muttered "What we going to do now?"

From the ground, Alex stared up at Hex as he clambered onto the platform. Behind him, Li was sat leaning back on her hands watching her friends intently with an amused look on her face. Alex caught her expression.

"Bet you're dying to get up there aren't you?" he asked grinning. Li switched her gaze to him and jerked her eyebrows up mischievously.

"I am looking forward to it, but not as much as I am to seeing how you're going to get onto that platform". Alex raised his own eyebrows apprehensively and looked up to his three friends thirty feet above him.

As he walked to the base of the platform and prepared to start climbing it in response to Amber's yell he swept a last glance at Li.

"I'm sure we'll manage. Just you watch".

Amber shifted her weight to both of her feet and leant forward into Paulo as Alex's head appeared from below the platform.

"Hello" quipped Hex who seemed to be literally centimetres in front of her taking up most of the remaining space and enjoying the activity immensely.

"Yeah hi Alex" she said sweetly "You know I don't think you're going to fit, you're going to have to go down" Alex knew she was joking and just grinned at her.

"We can do this Amber," he said confidently taking Hex's offered arm. Amber smiled back at him as she shakily let go of Paulo's arm with one of her hands and offered it to Alex.

"Don't cha just know it" she laughed.

Very slowly Hex and Amber, combined with Alex pulling himself up, managed to get Alex onto the remaining space on the platform. As he straightened up the pole wobbled significantly and Amber yelped in surprise.

"Ok then," said Hex from behind Paulo and Alex "Let's do this".

Amber fumbled around with her right hand till she found Alex's left. Then she slipped her left hand down till it met Paulo's hands. Once they had determined that they all had hold of each other's hands Alpha Force began gradually edging backwards. Once they were all facing each other in a small circle, their heels off the edge of the platform Amber grinned across at the boys and nodded, they all nodded back in reply as Amber shouted down to her friend on the ground.

"Ready to see something really brilliant Li?"

On the ground Li watched as the four members of Alpha Force slowly leaned back until the only thing keeping them on the platform were each other and the circle they had formed. It was a pretty amazing sight, and Li felt slightly put out she wasn't up there herself.

"Ready?" she yelled. Then, after a countdown of three, the four friends let go. The four of them fell back, and, supported by the harnesses slowly began to descend. Li smiled at the different ways her four friends had reacted to the stomach-rushing fall. Alex and Hex had both stayed silent, Paulo had laughed out loud and Amber had whooped.

When they reached the ground Amber turned to Li her eyes lit up.

"That was incredible!" Li smiled at her friend's reaction and sent similar grins to the boys as they unclipped the ropes from their harnesses and wandered over to her. She could see the excitement on all their faces.

Hex walked up back to Li still feeling the adrenaline of excitement that had flooded through him when he'd dropped from the platform. In front of him, Li had grabbed Paulo's still swinging rope and was already attaching it to her own harness. She grinned wickedly up at the rest of Alpha Force.

"Ready to see how it's really done?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"I'm going to miss this," Li mused as she wandered back up the path to the lodges with the rest of Alpha Force. "I'm glad you arranged it, Alex." The others murmured their agreement.

"I thought it would be a welcome change from running around Australia and in and out burning buildings," Alex said, looking back at Li who was practically bouncing up the path.

"Speaking of – " Amber said, swinging her helmet round on her wrist as she walked "I thought you had something planned, Hex?"

Hex looked up, hearing his name but obviously not clearly registering what Amber had just said.

"What?" he said looking round at her. Amber sighed.

"I said, cloth ears, that I thought you said you had something planned for us to do?"

"Oh yeah" Hex replied, smiling, "That. I was just thinking about it actually. It's not sorted at the moment so I can't tell you yet." Amber scowled.

"Why not?" she asked haughtily. Hex shrugged, grinning.

"Thought I'd surprise you all," he said lightly, then caught Amber's expression and rolled his eyes at her. "Oh come on, Amber. I'll probably get the e-mail today, you'll know by this evening." Amber pursed her lips and stared into the distance up to the lodge where Alpha Force were staying, her eyes steely. A smile slowly spread onto her face.  
"Not if I get there first!" She smiled wickedly before running off up the path towards the lodge.

Hex frowned before smiling and shaking his head.

"Where's she going?" He didn't realise the other three had stopped until he was walking on his own and turned to see them all standing staring with varying degrees of amusement on their faces.

"What?" he asked. Li glanced at the two other boys before deciding she might as well break the news to Hex.

"Hex where did you leave your palmtop this morning?" Hex frowned for a couple of seconds before realising what Li was talking about. A look of comprehension and annoyance crept up on his face. He whipped his head round to see a tiny Amber reaching the door to their lodge. He swore and thrusting his helmet in Alex's arms started sprinting up the hill.

Li giggled as they watched Hex run after Amber until he too disappeared into the lodge. She grinned up at the other two as they continued their saunter up the hill.

"You'd think they'd have caught on by now, wouldn't you?" she said light-heartedly.

"What do you mean?" Paulo asked looking back down at Li quizzically. Li frowned at Paulo.

"Don't be stupid Paulo, surely you've noticed?" Paulo looked blankly at her. Li raised her eyebrows and stopped walking. "Seriously?" she said staring at him sceptically "You've not noticed?"

"What?" Paulo asked innocently. Alex stopped now too and looked at Li, squinting in the low sun. Li raised her eyebrows even further as she turned to Alex.

"Help me out here!" she said exasperatedly, but Alex was looking at her with the same blank expression as Paulo. Li shook her head in amazement.

"What – in all these years you've never noticed?" Both of them stared down at her blankly. Li gritted her teeth as she turned away from them both and started striding up the hill and yelled.

"Boys!"

The sun was slowly sinking down leaving lazy yellow light spreading across the grass and midges danced above the green blades. Amber sighed.

"I wish we could stay here forever," she said lying back onto the rug Alpha Force had set out outside their lodge.

Amber had remained sulky for the majority of the afternoon after failing to get to Hex's palmtop and it's contents before he reached her, but she hadn't been able to keep the grumpy state up long, as the other four were so cheerful and enjoying the last evening of the holiday.

Alex, who was sat on the rug next to her, stared out across the green hills in the distance.

"This is what I really love," he said, reflecting.

"It's certainly up there" Li granted, curling her legs up onto her chair. Paulo nodded his own agreement from his own chair and leaned back, closing his eyes, enjoying the last of the sun.

At that moment Hex pulled open the sliding doors behind them to the lodge, briefly disturbing the stillness. Amber stared up at him questioningly.

"Will you let us know now then?" she said, rather bitterly. Hex just smiled at her as he walked over to the rug.

"I can announce," he said happily "That I have the details of our next trip."

"Finally!" Amber said excitedly and grinned up at Hex, who proceeded to kick her legs out of the way so he could join her and Alex on the rug.

"So" Li said, her hair dangling as she hung her head over the arm of her chair "What we doing now?" Hex looked round at each of them, as if he were merely prolonging their curiosity as he sat down.

"We're going to do some running," he said as he looked across at Amber whose expression slowly turned to one of disgust.

"That's it?" she said "Running?"

"Ah," said Hex; loading up his palmtop, "This isn't normal running".

"What, are we going to be running while having to carry eighteen buckets of water or something stupid like that?" Amber scoffed from her place on the blanket. Hex merely shook his head.

"What then?" asked Li from her chair, but Alex was already smiling.

"I think I know," he said glancing across to Hex. Hex nodded knowingly across at Alex.

"Anyone else?" he asked, obviously enjoying making his friends guess.

"Is this some silly English running thing that we're not going to know about?" asked Amber, glaring at Hex. Hex ignored her and looked up at Paulo and Li.

"It is English," he said, "But you should all know about it. We're staying at my place." At these words Li's eyes lit up and she let out a small –

"Oh!"

Amber, obviously annoyed at the rest of Alpha Force's guessing abilities as compared to her own, sat up and stared at Hex.

"Tell us," she moaned "Please?" Hex grinned.

"We are going to be running the London Marathon this year." Li's smile widened as she let out another, "Oh!" and Alex smiled as he settled back on his back next to Amber. Paulo's face lit up and Amber sat up and opened her mouth wide.

"Really?" she asked looking at Hex. "You really did that?" Hex nodded in the affirmative and Amber stared at him studiously for a couple of seconds before settling back down on the rug and murmured.

"Can't wait."

* * *

**A/N: This chapter and the previous one have been edited since 15/04/08. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, it is much appreciated, and to my beta, spinkle22 - Elle xx**


End file.
